


Weak Points

by DameRuth



Series: Bliss [19]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24543250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameRuth/pseuds/DameRuth
Summary: The Bliss team has a bad experience, and Jack considers himself to blame.[Continuing the Teaspoon imports, original posting date 2008.12.08.]
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Jack Harkness/Rose Tyler
Series: Bliss [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/14078
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written as a [Support Stacie](http://www.majiksfanfic.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=101) bidding incentive fic for wmr/wendymr, this sucker fell prey to what I call "'Second Gifts' syndrome," namely a rapidly-ballooning word count.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of that's because I realized I could take her prompt, _"Bliss universe: Jack has a bad day and feels he's let the other two down badly; comfort required,"_ and use it as a springboard for a later story I've had planned for a while. Part of it's just the fickle nature of plotbunnies. At any rate, she got quite a deal on the word count with this one, even if I don't think it approaches hoped-for levels of "comfort" (*cough*smut*cough*). ;)  
>   
> Two parts, second to post shortly. Many thanks to aibhinn for her usual kindness in beta-ing a big pile of fic dropped in her lap without warning.  
>   
> Random Authorly Aside: I had a heckuva time thinking up a title for this one. "Flirting With Disaster" was the working title, but got ditched for outrageous levels of corniness, especially since the fic isn't a humor piece. As I commented to aibhinn, "Woobie Jack Screws Up" was tempting, since it was at least descriptive, but it lacked a certain something -- like, say, dignity. Finally came up with something passable, at least. But I haven't had to wrestle with a title like that for a long while.

Jack took another sip of his highly-alcoholic drink, enjoying himself immensely. Across from him, the Countess D’zorkih fluttered her eyelashes and gave him a coy little smile. Jack grinned back, with carefully-calculated effect. The woman was gorgeous, even though he was betting she was eighty if she was a day. Body-mods and cosmetic surgery had been very kind to her, and you just didn’t get that tantalizing sense of accumulated experience in anyone younger. Jack was more than willing to bet that this woman could teach _him_ a few things — or a dozen.  
  
Not that Jack had any intention of letting things go that far, of course. He wasn’t interested in doing anything more than flirting with the lovely Countess. Anymore, no casual hookup could possibly offer a fraction of the pleasure he had waiting for him at home on the TARDIS. Sexual partners who could get inside your head and know what your body wanted before you did had a way of resetting the curve. Not to mention that Rose and the Doctor were his two best friends and he’d promised to be exclusive with them. The Doctor’s antique signet ring was a steady weight on the third finger of Jack’s left hand.  
  
But, dammit, he _missed_ this, the little give and take of flirtation with someone new and intriguing, the knowledge that it could be so much more, the reminder of days when he’d had a reputation and had cut as wide a swath through the available sentients of the Universe as he’d had time and inclination to.  
  
Every so often this exclusivity thing got a little . . . domestic. And every so often, a guy liked the feeling he still had that elusive “it.”  
  
“Would you like more?” the Countess asked, politely offering the decanter from which she’d poured Jack’s drink. Her expression made it clear she wasn’t offering alcohol alone, however, as did the light touch against his ankle. _Someone_ had slipped off her shoe and upped the ante.  
  
“Madam, you tempt me greatly,” Jack replied cordially. This was the point where he used to reel them in, but now it was time to close things down. He’d had the gratification of reaching the homestretch with a gorgeous, wealthy, powerful and attractive person. That was enough.  
  
“But,” he continued, “I know my limits, and fear I must decline.” He set his glass on the table, and shifted his weight, preparing to rise. The others had drifted off in other directions, he remembered vaguely; not a problem, though. He could simply open the link and find them.  
  
Still smiling at the Countess, he reached out with his mind . . .  
  
. . . And found nothing. Just an empty void outside his own head.  
  
Jack’s smile froze. He was looking right into the Countess’ eyes, and saw her register his reaction, could tell that this was something she’d expected, something planned. Her face was exceptionally controlled, but Jack had spent years of his life surviving by reading the tiniest cues of expression on his marks’ faces, and it was a knack he still retained.  
  
The first shock threatened to dissolve into outright horror — what could possibly have broken an unbreakable bond? Especially without him noticing anything? — but a flicker of the Countess’ eyes and a slight gesture with the fingertips of one hand warned Jack that the large and decorative footman behind him, who had been adorning the drawing room doorway, was about to get very unfriendly.  
  
Approximately twenty seconds later, Jack was running down the corridor carrying both the footman/guard’s weapon and the pretty but nasty little sonic derringer the Countess had been hiding (literally) up her sleeve. He’d fused the drawing room doors closed with the guard’s laser, sealing the Countess and her worse-for-wear guard inside, but he was betting the silent alarm was going off right now. He had minutes at best to find the others and make a getaway.  
  
Sheer adrenaline was kicking his brain into overdrive, and even though there was a terrifying blur where the link normally connected to his mind, it wasn’t as completely blank and silent as he’d first thought. There was a tiny, muzzy hint of warmth that told him Rose and the Doctor were still alive and in the same relative portion of space-time, but that was all. It was like opening his eyes and realizing he was nearly blind except for the barest perception of light and shadow.  
  
He was just starting to get really scared when he turned a corner and nearly ran into Rose and the Doctor.  
  
“Jack!” Rose practically sobbed his name. “Oh, thank God, I thought . . .”  
  
“Later,” Jack said, shaking his head, at the same moment the Doctor said, “This way!” and led them all in a flat-out run down a side corridor, then out a window (opened precipitously with the aid of the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver to remove the forcefield component, in concert with a marble-topped end table pitched through the physical glass by Jack). They were halfway across the open grass when the first weapons fire spattered into the grass on either side of them; however, it quickly became clear that the guards were either genuinely terrible shots or were reluctant to actually shoot the escapees, and were trying to intimidate them into stopping.  
  
Whatever the case might be, it was rendered irrelevant the minute the Doctor’s key snicked into the lock of the TARDIS, which was waiting partially concealed by a gazebo. Rose slammed the door shut behind them, and the Doctor bounded up the ramp and piloted them away from the Countess’ stately manor house and gardens, into the chaotic safety of the Vortex.  
  
\--  
  
The minute the door was closed, even before the first rumble of dematerialization, Rose flung herself into Jack’s arms. He grabbed hold of her gratefully, drinking in her soft, solid warmth and the familiar scent of her. The physical contact was wonderful, but even though he strained with all his psionic strength, there was no more mental contact than a faint, fuzzy “glow” that vaguely indicated Rose’s presence.  
  
“Oh, Jack,” Rose said, hugging him even more tightly, sounding heartbroken, “what’s _wrong_ I can hardly hear you . . .!”  
  
“I don’t know, hon,” Jack answered, closing his eyes and letting himself give in to his fear for the first time. His head was clear — the amount of alcohol he’d consumed had been minimal, really, and all of his standard five human senses were coming through bright and clear. It was only his psionic capabilities that seemed blunted.  
  
Another pair of arms went around them both, adding another layer of safety. “I think I might have an idea. Jack, did you drink anything?” The Doctor sounded focused, urgent.  
  
Jack stiffened. “Yes, some kind of alcohol. Didn’t recognize the exact vintage or anything . . .”  
  
“That would be it,” the Doctor said, so decisively Jack’s cold fear began to melt a little. The Doctor’s hold loosened. “Jack, look at me.”  
  
Jack obeyed, and the Doctor studied his eyes briefly. “Exhale, through your mouth.” A pause. “Yep, you’ve been drugged. And we all need to get to the medbay.” He disentangled himself.  
  
Pulling back, Jack took a close look at the Doctor for the first time. One whole side of the Time Lord's face was reddening and swelling.  
  
"How're your teeth?" Rose asked, a little anxiously.  
  
The Doctor probed with his tongue and winced slightly. Rose winced in link-bound sympathy. Jack felt nothing. "Still there," the Doctor replied. "Plenty of time to re-set 'em. Feels like your wrist's stiffening right up, though."  
  
"It's fine," Rose said, her tone somewhere between reassuring and resolute.  
  
"Wait, what happened to you two?" Jack asked with escalating alarm. Now he could see how Rose was favoring her right wrist (when she'd hugged him, she'd been using her forearms, not her hands) and underneath her makeup she was developing a pronounced swelling over her left cheekbone.  
  
"Medbay," the Doctor growled, herding the humans in that direction. "We can talk while we're patching up."  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a busy day -- but here's part 2, finally. :D

Despite the others' conditions, the first thing the Doctor did while Rose was warming up the tissue regenerator was to dial some chemical compound or other into the medsynth system, which obligingly coughed coughed up a hypospray. "Jack," he said, beckoning.  
  
Jack obediently responded and was surprised when the Doctor injected him directly over the large vein in his arm, rather than into muscle. "You said I was drugged?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, and that's the antagonist -- as much as I dare give you, anyway. Look at me again." A pause. "I'm hopin' that'll damp down the aftereffects."  
  
"What was it?"  
  
"I could rattle off the chemical compound, but that'd take all day. I don't know if it's got a common name or not, but I know what it does. Got a dose of it myself, once. Alcohol-soluble, and completely odorless and tasteless goin’ down." The Doctor grimaced in memory, then winced as the expression pulled bruised muscles in his face. "It temporarily blocks psionic ability."  
  
"Temporarily?" Rose and Jack repeated hopefully, nearly in unison. "You mean it's not permanent?" Jack added, feeling a huge wash of relief loosen his stomach muscles.  
  
"No, it should wear off in a few hours," the Doctor said; he seemed ready to say more, but Rose got to him with the tissue regenerator just then.  
  
"Hush for a moment," she said firmly, starting to work the instrument over the Doctor's face, starting at his cheek. "This has to go deep enough for those teeth. We might as well take turns comparing notes anyway. I'll start.  
  
"Jack, you were talkin' to the Countess like there was no tomorrow, and the Doctor'd gone off with that one bloke . . ."  
  
"N'darien," the Doctor mumbled, more or less.  
  
"Keep _still_!" Rose told him, then continued her story. "Another servant came up to me — said his name was T'-something. He was just about the prettiest thing I'd ever seen, present company included — no offense — and he was all nice and sweet and servant-y . . ."  
  
"Servile," the Doctor corrected.  
  
"If you don't stop talkin’, I'm gonna go get the surgical tape, I swear. Anyway, T'something told me the Countess wanted to reward me specially by giving me a piece of her personal jewelry — some sort of local custom — and since she was playin' hostess and didn't want to leave Jack all alone, she'd sent him to take me to pick something out." She reddened a little. "Sounded a little fishy, but he seemed really sincere, so I went with him.  
  
"I figured he'd be takin' me to some room nearby, but we went way down this long hallway, and I started to get nervous. Eventually he sat me down in this little room, all nice and posh and said he'd go get the jewelry for me to look at, and wouldn't I like a drink while I waited?  
  
"That was when I really started to get worried. I mean, it didn't make any _sense_. Why didn't he just bring the goods to the drawing room an' let me pick there, if it was all that easy to carry around? And he really wanted me to have that drink.  
  
"I decided to play the 'local customs' card right back at him, and went all giggly and said I really shouldn't be away alone from my husbands so long and all, since it wasn’t proper — didn’t figure it mattered that we weren’t actually legal yet, so long as it got me out of there.  
  
"Didn't work, though. He kept sayin' it'd just be a minute and offerin' me a drink, and we went a few rounds before I decided to just get up and leave. How're those teeth doin'?" She powered down the regenerator and considered the side of the Doctor's face critically.  
  
The Doctor, correctly realizing that she'd switched from narrative to interrogative, tested again with his tongue. "That feels good. "Your turn."  
  
Rose handed over the regenerator, and finished her story while the Doctor reset the machine. "When I actually moved toward the door, that was when T'something showed his true colors. He caught my wrist, pulled me back, hit me," she tilted her bruised cheek by way of illustration, "and tried to twist my arm up behind my back. He was goin' for something in his pocket, I think.”  
  
"That son of a —" Jack started to snarl, able to picture the scene all too well.  
  
"So," Rose continued, with a half shrug, "I got loose, dislocated his arm, and kicked him a good one in the knee so he couldn't run after me. I think I broke it," she added with grim pride.  
  
Jack closed his mouth. While he'd tried to give Rose a solid self-defense grounding and she was a good student in the TARDIS' dojo, he'd always been a worried she'd prove too gentle or hesitant to actually make use of her training in earnest. Well, one concern out of the way, at least.  
  
"Then I took off down the hallway as fast as I could, callin' for you two so you'd know it was all a trap." she finished, tapping her temple with one forefinger to indicate the link. The Doctor was already working on the wrist of her other hand. "I was afraid there'd be guards all over the place, but I didn't see anyone. Guess they thought T'something could handle me by himself. He was a big bloke." Her tone of voice was decidedly unimpressed.  
  
Jack, temporarily with nothing to do, leaned his hip against one of the examination tables and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He felt like a complete fool. Why hadn't he been able to see they were being set up? His instincts used to be set on a hair trigger. And even worse, the two people he cared most about in the Universe had been in trouble and he hadn't even known.  
  
"The drug they gave me must have already kicked in. I didn't hear any of that," he confessed. "Sounds like they were trying to separate us and knock out the link . . . but _why_? We _helped_ them! If it wasn't for us, that haemovore would still be draining people in the Countess' city." That was what they'd been doing in her mansion in the first place: she'd said she wanted to personally thank the heroes who'd saved her people.  
  
The Doctor sighed. He'd stopped the regenerator and was checking Rose's wrist, gently working the joint. Jack could tell from the faint flickers of expression crossing their faces that they were communicating silently. He ached for the loss of his connection to the others, but at the same time, the increasing shame and guilt he was feeling over his own failure weren't exactly something he would have wanted to share.  
  
"I think I have a fair guess what was going on," the Doctor said, releasing Rose's wrist and going to work on her face. He sounded more sad than angry. "That Countess, she had a real fondness for collecting body-mods, for herself and her people . . ."  
  
"Yeah, I know," Jack said grimacing. "The guard she had with her turned out to have claws." Rose and the Doctor both looked at him in alarm. Jack waved their obvious concern away. "He didn't get me. I think he was trying not to hurt me too much. I didn't have similar concerns." He gave them a fair approximation of his usual evil smile.  
  
"Anyway," the Doctor continued, turning back to his work on Rose, "Don't think either of you were around for it, but towards the end she was asking me all about the link, saying she'd never seen a functional body-mod for telepathy before. I told her it was natural, didn't bother correcting her on what it really was, though; none of her business. She didn't believe me and kept pushing, so I changed the subject. Then you two flushed the haemovore out of hidin', and that stopped the whole conversation."  
  
Jack blinked. They'd been open enough about their connection, especially when it allowed them to coordinate and triangulate in the field. It was such a natural thing, anymore, it was sometimes hard to remember how unusual it really was. But he could see where the Doctor's train of thought was going.  
  
So did Rose. "So if we hadn't got away, we'd be in a lab somewhere, havin' the insides of our heads looked at?" she asked, looking a little pale.  
  
"Probably. Fits in with what happened t' me. You two were talkin' to the Countess when that N'darien bloke pulled me aside, asked if I wanted a quick look at the Countess' private ship."  
  
Jack could see the appeal; they'd only glimpsed the contents of the estate's hangar briefly and in passing, but in addition to body-mods, the Countess clearly had a fondness for air and space transport, including a truly drool-worthy little short range space cruiser. Both Jack and the Doctor had noticed it, sharing a brief moment of techno-lust before they had to keep moving on the trail of the haemovore.  
  
"'Course I said yes. Almost asked if you wanted to come along, Jack, but you were obviously enjoyin' yourself, so I didn't want to interrupt." The words were even enough, but Jack caught a brief hint of almost-hidden acid, and winced a little. The Doctor wasn't always fond of Jack's flirting with strangers, though he usually covered it well. Nothing like a whole new flavor of guilt to enjoy.  
  
"Anyway, when we got to the hangar, we were met by a big pile of the Countess’ servants — a lot more than they need to show me ‘round, but I didn’t think anythin’ of it at first. One of them had a tray with a glass and a decanter on it, stop me if you’ve heard that part before . . .”  
  
“They really were tryin’ to drug us all, weren’t they?” Rose asked, eyes narrowing.  
  
“I refused, since I didn’t want to be jugglin’ a glass if I was lookin’ at machinery, even though he kept offerin’ every thirty seconds. Finally told him to back off, and he did.” That was accompanied by a glower that indicated the servant in question had received a face full of Oncoming Storm. Ordinarily it would have been a funny image, but Jack was feeling to heartsick to enjoy it.  
  
“N'darien had one of the exterior access panels off, showin’ me the skinfield projectors when I heard Rose.” The Doctor grimaced. “I wasn’t expecting it, so I reacted pretty strongly. N’darien didn’t waste any time. ‘Fore I could do much more than twitch, he slammed my head into the side of the ship, tryin’ to stun me. Idiot — wrong way to go about it if they were so interested in the inside of our heads. Then hit me with a shockstick.”  
  
Jack flinched physically in sympathy. The Doctor’s casual wording belied how incredibly painful that kind of shock was, as Jack knew from personal experience. The Doctor, finished with healing the bruise on Rose’s cheek, snapped off the regenerator and began readying it for storage.  
  
“He knocked me over and was movin’ in with a hypospray. Think he figured I was down for the count, but then I grabbed the shockstick by the business end and pulled it away from him — he wasn’t expectin’ _that_.”  
  
That was an understatement, Jack knew; a human trying to pull that maneuver would probably have ended up unconscious.  
  
“He jumped back, and I set the thing to maximum field and chucked it out into the middle of ‘em — all the others were moving in to help N’darien. I think they had me figured for the dangerous one. More fools them.” The last was spoken with fond affection as the Doctor brushed a few strands of hair away from Rose’s forehead. She grinned back at him. “They scattered, and I was up and out the door ‘fore they could regroup. I soniced the doors shut, and took off for the house.”  
  
“I heard him loudest,” Rose told Jack, hooking her thumb in the Doctor’s direction and taking up her side of the story, “so I ran for him and we met up in the hall.” She swallowed. “We could hardly hear you at _all_ ,” her voice faltered with remembered worry. “Just a little hint that you were alive. We thought you’d been knocked unconscious. I was so worried . . . but then we ran into you in the hallway and you were okay.” She smiled, and Jack didn’t need the link to read her radiant relief.  
  
_Yeah, I was okay because I’d been lazing around, trading bad double entendres with a woman who was out to get us, while you two were getting beaten up by her goons._ Jack’s stomach twisted.  
  
The plan was crystal-clear now: divide them up, block their connection through the link with an ingested drug to keep them from alerting one another, zap them with some injected sedative or paralytic. . . and then work them over as desired, at leisure. A little baroque, but, if the goal was to keep them relatively undamaged, not completely ridiculous. And they’d walked right into it.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said, earning surprised glances from his shipmates. “I should have noticed something was wrong, and instead I was taken in like a complete idiot . . .” he broke off, feeling too miserable to continue.  
  
A flicker of exchanged glances, and probably more detailed mental communication passed between Rose and the Doctor.  
  
“Jack,” Rose said, frowning, “It’s not your fault. We were all taken in.”  
  
“Yeah,” he shot back,“ but I should _know_ this stuff, and I got careless, and you suffered for it.”  
  
“You didn’t get careless,” the Doctor said, stepping over to him and resting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You got _trusting_.” He grimaced. “If anyone’s guilty of an overdose of that, it’s me. Nine hundred years and I still haven’t learned better.”  
  
Jack shook his head, trying to find a way to articulate what he was feeling. Automatically, he fumbled for the link, to express himself more directly, but everything was still fuzzy and ineffective, despite the injection of antagonist.  
  
He’d always seen himself as looking out for the others — the Doc might be nine hundred years old, and a Time Lord, and Rose might have grown up in a rougher part of her town, with the attendant street smarts that implied, but the two of them still had a fundamental innocence that _deserved_ to be protected. And all they had for a protector was Jack, who clearly wasn’t doing his job . . .  
  
The Doctor gazed into Jack’s face, searching, his steel-blue eyes unusually gentle. Even without a functional link, Jack had the impression the Doctor wasn’t having any trouble reading his mind. Then the Time Lord cocked his head slightly.  
  
“Well, Captain,” he said, turning to the side and reaching down beneath the examination table. “Y’ can stop beating yourself up. Your body’s about to take over for you. Judgin’ from your eye pupils, the second stage of that drug’s effects are about to kick in.”  
  
He straightened and handed Jack a plastic bucket.  
  
“What?” Confused, Jack looked down into the empty bucket. The Doctor stepped back slightly.  
  
Then Jack’s stomach did something completely socially unacceptable and he was very glad indeed for the bucket.  
  
\--  
  
The next couple of hours were a literal purgatory for Jack. The Doctor set him up with a saline-and-glucose IV pack strapped to his arm, and then to Jack’s relief his two shipmates largely left him to it, though they checked in regularly.  
  
Finally Jack rinsed the inside of his mouth for the umpteenth time with a little tepid water, tried a few tentative swallows of the same and found it didn’t sit in his stomach like a ball of misery.  
  
He leaned on the medbay’s lav sink and groaned, starting to believe it might be over.  
  
A scuff in the doorway, and a hint of the Doctor’s psionic signature told him he was no longer alone. He was feeling too drained to look up or do anything but send a flick of mental recognition in the Doctor’s general direction by way of greeting — but that was a relief in itself. Clearly, the drug’s psionic effects were as transitory as the Doctor had promised.  
  
Deftly, the Doctor switched out the old IV pack for a fresh one. “You should be through the worst of it now, Jack-me-lad. Keep the bucket handy for a bit longer, though.”  
  
“Thanks,” Jack replied, trying not to sound as wretched as he felt. “Was it this bad for you?”  
  
“Worse. I didn’t have the antagonist. S’ why I wanted to get you a dose quick as I could. I was hopin’ it wouldn’t be as hard on your system — different species — but no such luck.”  
  
Jack couldn’t imagine what the effects would have been like _without_ the antagonist and the system-cushioning effects of the IV. He really didn’t want to try either. “Anything more to look forward to?”  
  
“Nope. You should be right as rain in another hour or two.”  
  
“I’m gonna go sit down,” Jack announced, realizing that if he didn’t, he might just fall down. He wobbled into the main medbay room, and dropped into the first convenient chair.  
  
The Doctor followed, snagging another chair and setting it next to Jack’s. “Rose is makin’ some ginger tea. It’ll be good for your stomach.”  
  
Jack had to smile. “Rose and her tea,” he said, fondly.  
  
“She’s English,” the Doctor said as if pointing out the obvious.  
  
The sat for a moment, Jack lolling a little, eyes closed, and the Doctor watching. Jack’s peace was short-lived, though. With his insides settling down, that left him the brainpower to get back to his guilt.  
  
The Doctor sighed before he could say anything. “ _Don’t_ start with that again,” he said, though kindly, rather than in irritation.  
  
“I’m just pissed off at myself,” Jack responded, “how can I not be? I was sitting there flirting, for no better reason than feeding my own goddamned ego, while you two were being hurt.”  
  
“It was only a matter of time before you would have been hurt, too,” the Doctor pointed out with steady pragmatism. “We’re just lucky Rose’s pretty-boy panicked when he did.”  
  
Jack didn’t respond out loud, but the Doctor caught the undercurrent of his thoughts and snorted.  
  
“The Countess had all our weak points figured: Rose and a pretty boy offering pretty jewelry, me and pretty technology, you and her pretty self. Not exactly a grand moment for any of us, you realize,” the Doctor pointed out dryly.  
  
The Doctor’s wording, and his tone of voice and thought, hit Jack in a newly vulnerable spot and he looked away. He tried shielding, but his psionic responses were still as wobbly as his body.  
  
“Sorry,” he said out loud. “I didn’t mean to . . .” the nausea of a few minutes ago was starting to feel attractive by comparison, compared to _this_. It was all the worse because it was a type of guilt he wasn’t used to, and hadn’t expected.  
  
The Doctor sighed, “hearing” all of it. “Jack,” he said and paused. When Jack didn’t respond, he reached around and caught Jack’s chin, turning Jack’s face gently but inexorably in his direction. “It’s all right. You did nothin’ wrong. I’m just a jealous sort this time around, and you’re _mine_.” Jack risked meeting the Doctor’s eyes, and there was something fierce and possessive in them that made Jack’s stomach drop with its intensity.  
  
Then the Doctor’s eyes gentled, and he added, “But that doesn’t mean I _own_ you. Or Rose. So I grit my teeth and try not to see red when you’re flirting or Rose is chatting up one of her pretty boys. Because when all’s said and done, I know expectin’ you to stop flirting is like expectin’ water to stop bein’ wet.” A ghost of a smile. “And because I trust you.”  
  
Jack swallowed, completely unable to formulate a response.  
  
“So does Rose,” the Doctor added. “If she didn’t, I don’t think she’d be so quick to laugh off the way you seem to attract half the Universe. She’s her mother’s daughter, in the end — only with more training. There’s a scary picture, if you want one.” The Doctor dropped his hand from Jack’s chin and rubbed his own jawline in a thoughtful, suggestive gesture.  
  
Caught unawares, Jack laughed, and the Doctor grinned at him. “So don’t feel bad on Rose’s account, either. I guarantee, if she was angry at you, she wouldn’t be makin’ you tea and worryin’ so hard I can hear her from here.”  
  
“Probably not,” Jack agreed, trying to keep the catch out of his voice. “Doesn’t mean I won’t be trying harder in the future.” He meant several things at once, and knew the Doctor understood all of them.  
  
“Don’t strain yourself,” the Doctor responded, the words sarcastic, but the affection behind them removing any potential hurt.  
  
Rose arrived then, with a rattle of china and a tray full of tea things. “Here you go,” she said, handing fragrant cups around. “I figured we could all use a cuppa. I put honey in it,” she added in an aside to Jack. “That’s glucose, it’ll get into your system faster.”  
  
“You take such good care of me,” Jack told her, sipping and finding his stomach blessedly agreeable.  
  
“’Course I do,” Rose said. “We look out for each other. It’s a team effort.”  
  
“Go, us,” Jack said, offering his cup for a round of toasting. Silently, as they clicked cups, he added a private promise.  
  
_We’re a team, but from now on, I’m working point._  
  



End file.
